Monday, December 28, 2009

Thanksgiving Dinner

As Thanksgiving came upon us we decided it would be fun to have a Thanksgiving dinner among the Alternate Nursing Students. We have spent a year together and have shared some great times. This dinner was the final party to celebrate our success. Big Thanks to Janae for hosting the dinner at her house. She worked super hard and it was beautiful! She also provided the potatoes, gravy, and turkey. Everyone else brought a dish or dessert. The food was delicious. This is Janae and Neil, there home was beautiful. Here are the three single alternate students., me, Marybeth, and Le. We stuck together through the program and had some fun experiences as the "singles".
Ready to explode...the food was so good!
Cleaning up after dinner. I managed to break two of Janae's dishes while trying to be helpful. Let that be a warning to any of you who invite me to dinner!

This is the gang. Starting at me and moving clockwise we have Christy, Karissa, Janae, Jennifer, Gina, Ira, Marybeth, Cameron, Eliot, and Le. Such good friends and excellent nurses.

This is the whole group. As you can see there were a lot of us because spouses were invited. It was fun to meet everyone and have such a good time.

Clinicals...Finished!!!

For those of you who are new to my life...I recently completed the nursing program at BYU-Idaho. It was a lot of work, tears, and joy as well. The following are some pictures of the last day of clinicals. Clinicals are the way nursing students get their experience. We go to a hospital, take care of 1-2 patients, and practice being nurses. These clinical shifts started when I was first in the program September 2008 and continued until November 21st 2009. We went once a week, mostly on Saturdays for 12 hour shifts. This makes a long Saturday! We went to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center for two semesters and Madison Memorial Hospital for two semesters. So here goes...

This is the walk we made each and every Saturday morning for two semesters. The only difference was that it was almost always in the dark(we had to be there by 6:30am and didn't leave until 6 or 7pm).
This is how I look at 6:30 in the morning. Keep in mind that we lived in Rexburg about a 45 min drive from Idaho Falls where the hospital was! This means waking up at 5am after a Friday night!


These are some of my fellow nursing students. You can tell how excited we are at 6:30am! Actually, this being the last day we were ecstatic!

This is the much feared and dreaded and even hated Nursing Care Worksheet (affectionately known as an NCW by nursing students)! I have spent probably 50 hours doing NCWs. It is a worksheet done on patients in clincial and includes assessment data, medications, lab tests, and nursing diagnoses.This is at the end of the last clinical day. We got out a few hours early which was fun. This is Marybeth and me. We were thrilled. I could never have made it through the program without Marybeth. We had a lot of fun together and we also shared some tough experiences. She always helped me when I was behind at clincials. Everyone needs a friend like Marybeth!
Jumping for joy!!!

This is the final walk from the EIRMC building. I think the smile on my face says it all. It was a great feeling to be done. The next time I enter a hospital I plan on being paid for my work!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Summer Fun!

I did a lot of fun things this summer during the 7 week break from classes. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable break and is helping to get me through the rest of school. I wanted to share some of the things that I did this summer. First, my family and I went to Island Park the day after school got out. My good friend from the nursing program, Marybeth came with us and we had a great time! We went jetskiing and swimming at Island Park Reservoir. However...my family all developed a weird rash that looked like mosquito bites all over our bodies. We determined that it was some kind of bug or plant in the water. Marybeth was smart and had worn waterproof bugspray, so she was fine. It was a good start to the summer.


Me and Marybeth...I am so grateful for such a good friend throughout the nursing program! I am so glad she could come with us to Island Park.

The very next Monday I set out on what turned out to be the adventure of a lifetime. I signed up for a whitewater rafting trip on the Salmon River for 5 days with BYU-Idaho. I was a little nervous to go completely on my own but I had so much fun! I made a lot of good friends and soaked in the fun and beautiful scenery.
One of the rafts loaded with our equipment, and in the background...the beautiful Salmon River scenary!
On our second day we stopped at this natural hot spring. It was the warmest hot spring I had ever been in! The pipe is pumping in COLD water...just to make the water bearable.
Our second night of the trip. We played some fun games involving the paddles and waterbottles. Obviously I am not too good at this game! We also floated through some rapids with only our lifejackets, talk about an adrenaline rush!
Here is some more beautiful scenary!
The third day we spent at a wonderful campsite that included this convenient boulder to jump off! We also turned a raft over and had a waterslide into the river!




Some other highlights of the summer include a wonderful kayaking trip with my grandpa at Teton National Park. That was a spectacular day!








This is my cousin and me by the lake...as you can see the water was smooth as glass.


My brother and me striking a pose!

My grandpa by his kayacks with the Tetons in the background. This is a perfect image of him with one of his hobbies and out in the nature he loves so much!




I also went on two great hikes with friends. One was to a beautiful waterfall/hot springs in Yellowstone, and the other was Mt. Timpanogos in Utah.

Waterfall in Yellowstone. This too had hotsprings at the bottom that were very nice. Isn't it beautiful?!
This is the view from the top of Mt. Timpanogos, looking east.

I hiked this with a friend made on the rafting trip, T. He is so much fun and it was super nice of him to go with me! Here we are at the top facing west.



The final exciting event was a week long vacation with my family. We went to New Orleans and left for a 5 day cruise. The ports of call included Progresso and Cozumel Mexico. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a great time snorkeling and relaxing together as a family. I will include pictures when I have some more time!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Yay! I am finally a blogger!

Well, I finally broke down and decided to start blogging! I have always wanted to start a blog, but I thought it was something that only married people could do. I have changed my mind and decided to jump in and share my life! I will post pictures and things from the summer but I am excited just to have made a start right now!